


Living on Love

by releasetheglitch



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), London Spy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, First Kiss, Fluff, Foursome - M/M/M/M, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/releasetheglitch/pseuds/releasetheglitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Navigating the logistics of a new relationship is never easy. When it's everyone's first attempt at a poly relationship? Well.</p><p>Sometimes even secret agents can be remarkably obtuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unravelling Alex Turner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Still, he has to admit, there is something about Alex that draws him in. Alex is a black hole. A locked door in an underground bunker. An extra wire in an exposed bomb. And Bond wants to unravel every one of his secrets._

Truth be told, Bond doesn’t know what to make of Alex.

Double-oh nine is a good agent—or so he’s heard. He’s not one to heed office gossip. According to the rumours though, Turner’s a model spy. Cool headed, discrete, a knack with technology that would qualify him for Q-branch if he wasn’t so talented as an agent. The kind of agent he’d bet his big toe Mallory wishes he could be.

But he’s not interested in Alex for his spying prowess. Agent turnover rates the way they are, he barely knows the names of half his fellow double-ohs. No, the truth of the matter is that he’s a little bit baffled by Q’s continuing interest in Alex. Q is loud, excitable, goofy, everything that Alex is not. Neither is Bond, for that matter, but he’s positive that his arse is at least nicer than Alex’s.

Honestly, Alex, as a person, confuses him. Oh sure, child prodigy, groomed into spyhood since before he could tie his shoes. It’s not as uncommon a story as one might expect. But Alex is…different. He’s a little like a machine. Even with Danny sitting on his lap while reading the morning paper, or Q throwing a sock at his head when Alex tries to wake him up at the crack of dawn, he never seems to show more emotion than a quirk of the lips. No man could be that stoic. Maybe Q built him in his labs.

He walks into the showers and pauses. Ah, speak of the devil. For a moment all he can see is expanses of tanned flesh, rivets of water coursing down lean muscles, suds doing nothing to disguise the trail of fine hairs that lead down—he must have made a sound, because Alex turns around.

“Need a hand?” Bond asks, for lack of anything better to say.

Alex looks up at him with pale grey eyes. He has very long eyelashes, Bond notes. They cast shadows over his face in the flickering lights of the shower.

“No, thank you,” he says, after a moment’s silence. That’s another thing about Alex. Every word sounds as if it was pulled out of his mouth, slow and thick as treacle. It’s infuriating. With a jolt, he realises just how much he wants to put his mouth over that mouth and see what noises he can coax out.

Instead, Bond just smirks, nodding in acquiescence before he walks away. Surveillance is a multi-pronged weapon, after all.

“What do you see in Alex?” he asks Q that night.

Q makes a miffed sound and buries his head under the pillow. Undeterred, Bond prods him between two ribs until Q squirms, drops out of the bottom of the duvet to glare at Bond. “Mrph?” he grumbles, half asleep. Bond would feel bad, but Q kicks and growls and reminds him so much a kitten that he’s mostly just charmed.

“Alex. Double-oh nine. What do you see in him?”

“Alex?” Q blinks. “The sex is good, he’s sweet, and he’s got more of a brain than most of the people I work with—no offense,” he adds as an afterthought.

“None taken.” Bond loves Q, he really does. But not even for love would he subject himself to one of Q’s “light reading” bricks. Fortunately, he’s happy to report that since Q’s shacked up with Alex, the number of lectures he’s had to endure on the inaccuracies of theoretical physics in popular culture has decreased significantly.

“Why’d you ask?” Q asks. “If this is some jealousy thing—”

“It’s not,” Bond assures. Far from it. This arrangement between the four of them, well, it’s strange. He won’t deny that. But he still has Q, his odd boyfriend with his propensity for explosives, his need for fluffy duvets, his long fingers that Bond loves to trail kisses over. It’s just that now he’s also got Danny, sweet Danny with the big eyes and too-soft heart. He’s even got Alex sometimes. Over dinner, back to back in the field, on the other end of the couch as they all squish in to watch a movie. What does he have to be jealous of, when he has more than he could ever have imagined? But because Q still looks skeptical, he adds, “I’m…intrigued, you might say.”

Something slots into place behind Q’s eyes. “Ah,” he says, in that smug tone that never fails to put James on guard. “I see.”

James blinks at him, refusing to yield, and Q grins.

“You should talk to Danny.”

Danny, as it turns out, is even more useless.

“There’s just this feeling, you know?” he babbles, eyes lit up in excitement the way they always do when he talks about Alex. “The first time we met, I got this, this spark in my chest, like oh, it’s him, he’s the one. Sometimes, you just know.”

James frowns, tucking Danny against him as the other man nuzzles his chest. Danny always gets keyed up after sex. In his more whimsical moments, Bond likes to think that an army of shagged-out Dannys could resolve their country’s energy crisis. “Yes, but—which specific traits? Is he generous? Sensitive? Caring?”

“Yes,” Danny beams, toes wriggling happily, and Bond gives up.

Still, he has to admit, there is something about Alex that draws him in. Alex is a black hole. A locked door in an underground bunker. An extra wire in an exposed bomb. And Bond wants to unravel every one of his secrets.

It starts innocently enough. A slight brush over the back as they pass each other in the cafeteria. A wink in a crowded conference room. Alex never reacts, just studies him with those unfathomable eyes. A stare that seems to say, “I see your antics, but they do not amuse me.” So Bond steps it up.

Next come the gifts, and those definitely get a reaction from Alex. Bond watches his brow furrow as he studies the box of truffles.

“I’m lactose intolerant,” says Alex.

Still, Bond is so pleased at seeing his face make any sort of expression that he walks with a spring in his heels for the rest of the day.

“He’s an idiot,” he hears Q whisper to Danny that night while they bake brownies in the kitchen. Apparently, Alex has banned them from his place after Q exploded an entire bag of flour on the counter, and Bond’s a sucker for puppy dog eyes.

Danny laughs. “Yeah, but he’ll figure it out.”

Bond wants to interrupt and ask what the bloody hell they mean by that. But then the oven makes an alarming rattling sound, and he get sidetracked into making sure the flat doesn’t blow up.

The following day, he’s headed down to storage to grab a few old guns for Q to play with, when he sees the familiar slope of Alex’s shoulder. He’s just standing there, leaning casually against the wall. His eyes fixed onto a point in space that Bond suspects he’ll never be able to see, even if Alex pointed out its exact location. The sight makes something flutter in his stomach.

“Come here often?” he calls, injecting a healthy dose of lascivious interest in his words. He expects Alex to sigh and call him juvenile, or offer a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he’s loitering in an empty hallway.

He doesn’t expect big hands to shoot out and grab him. Nor does he expect to be slammed against the wall. Then Alex’s face is so close to him that Bond can feel his staccato breaths on his cheeks. He blinks.

“You are testing me,” Alex whispers lowly. The deep rasp of his voice reminds Bond of wood grain and varnish, cayenne and cocoa. He opens his mouth to reply but then Alex’s mouth is on his and oh, oh. Oh. Where Q’s kisses are playful and teasing, and Danny’s are borderline worshipful, Alex is all hard edges and a raw sort of desperation that Bond can relate to. He deepens the kiss, pulling Alex in by the lapels of his shirt and Alex makes a sort of shuddering sound that makes the room feel several degrees hotter than it had been.

Alex’s eyes are grey. Oh so grey. James thinks that he’s drowning in them. He pulls back and those eyes are fixed on him, as inscrutable as always, but it all feels completely different this time. “This is what you’ve been hiding?” he asks, fireworks going off in his heart.

Alex pauses, as if he’s considering the question seriously. And for once, Bond doesn’t wait for an answer. He just brings their lips together again, drunk on the knowledge that he will never, ever understand Alex Turner.


	2. Sugar and Spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It wasn’t until Alex that he realised how powerful the sensation of being wrapped up in someone you loved could be. Wasn’t until James that he learned how to trust someone with his sexual needs. Wasn’t until Q that love without making love even seemed possible._
> 
> _But what if he’s just ruined it?_

“Bugger him, Candice,” Danny snaps, chucking a handful of popcorn at the telly. “That pig of an ex-husband never deserved you.”

Q hums sympathetically from his perch at the other end of the couch. He doesn’t look up from whatever he’s doing on his laptop—Danny suspects nations may crumple if he did—but that doesn’t mean Q isn’t listening. “Steve is back? I thought he died in that car accident in season four.”

The show cuts away to an ad for car insurance, and Danny throws down the remote in disgust. “Nah, but he had heavy facial reconstruction surgery done, so Candice didn’t recognize him until she snooped in his wallet and found a picture of him and her half-sister in bed.” He rubs his eyes, feeling the heavy sting of an afternoon whiled away on trash soap operas. James and Alex are both out of the country, though the details are confidential, and consequentially, no one’s there to tell him to stretch his legs or eat something. Certainly not Q, who didn’t seem like anything short of a nuclear winter could pull him from what he’s working on.

Well, _someone_ has to be the adult while their two lovers are gone. “What do you want for dinner?” Danny asks.

“Tea, ta.”

“That’s not—” Danny catches the tail end of a smirk dancing on Q’s lips, and smacks his hip. “You arse, seriously!”

Q laughs and throws his feet over Danny’s lap. Today he’s wearing a pair of neon blue socks with yellow daleks printed on them, and Danny’s heart warms at the sight. For all that Q is a little terrifying when he pores over lines of code, Danny is quickly learning that Q is also one of the funniest, warmest, dorkiest men he’s ever met.

“Takeout?” Q asks hopefully. Then, seeing that Danny is about to argue, adds: “We can bake cookies while we wait for it to get here.”

Aw, damn. Danny _does_ like cookies. “Are you bribing me?” he asks suspiciously, because Q is wearing that innocent and reasonable look he only uses when he wants to get his way on something. Danny has seen it used on James when he wanted first dibs on the shower, and on Alex when he wanted to borrow the other man’s jumper. Evidentially, it’s Danny’s turn now.

“Yes,” Q admits, shameless to the last. “Indian or Chinese?” With one last, vindictive-sounding stab of the keyboard, he slams his laptop shut and lowers it to the ground. A moment later, long arms are wrapped around Danny’s middle and a bony jaw resting on his shoulder.

Danny blinks at the sudden physical contact. Q has a rather brusque way of displaying affection that mostly involves him draping himself all over the nearest person like a cat that’s decided to grace you with its presence. However, deliberate, boyfriend-ly touches like this are a rarity. Something in Danny’s stomach gives a flip.

“Chinese,” says Danny, before the silence stretches too long. He tilts his head back and smiles at Q, who nuzzles his cheek lazily. “I remember what happened last time I let you order curry for me.”

Q laughs. “If I recall, it was James who dared you to order the dish with ghost peppers.”

“No more talking about it,” Danny declares firmly. Any more discussion of that Incident, and he’ll have totally lost his appetite. Q hums in agreement and begins running his fingers through the hair at the back of Danny’s nape. Danny lets himself indulge in the affectionate touch for a few beats, then shifts.

“Be right back,” he says, regretfully disentangling himself from Q’s clingy limbs, warm with the domesticity of a slow winter’s night. Without thinking about it, he pecks Q on the lips as he gets up.

He’d taken three steps before realising what he’d done, and whips around, wild-eyed. Q stares back at him, eyes big as saucers behind his spectacles. His entire face is bright red. Danny opens his mouth and closes it again. Once. Twice.

“I, um, I didn’t—”Danny stutters. “That is. Um. You.” Q doesn’t seem like he’ll be ready to speak any time soon, so Danny casts about for a diversion. Dinner? Chinese. Chow mein. _Yes._ “I’ll just. Food.” He practically sprints to the kitchen before he can make an even bigger fool of himself.

He ducks into the nook between the fridge and counter and curls down, _mortified_ at what he’s just done. Q is, they’ve never—it was a moment of confusion, a touch of brain haze brought about by the low lighting and intimate touches. Q is his best friend, his partner in crime, the man he shares his two lovers with. They simply don’t have that kind of relationship.

Q and him, they have a delicate arrangement. They’ve shared a bed, seen each other in the throes of passion. But there’s no sexual attraction there. Every time Q stares at his erection when they’re all in bed together, he gets the feeling that Q is _studying_ it. It’s not that they’re repulsed by each other, simply that the desire does not exist.

Danny doesn’t want to sleep with Q, and that’s strange in itself. Because as Danny’s ex put it, he’ll “shag anything on two legs with a cock.” Crude, but he can’t deny the fact that his sexual history is…less than pristine. He used to think that sex was just another substitute for romantic intimacy, another drug to fill up the empty spaces inside him. It wasn’t until Alex that he realised how powerful the sensation of being wrapped up in someone you loved could be. Wasn’t until James that he learned how to trust someone with his sexual needs. Wasn’t until Q that love without _making_ love even seemed possible.

But what if he’s just ruined it?

His fingers shake. God, he needs a smoke.

“Danny?” he hears Q’s voice calling, and for a second he seriously considers leaping out the kitchen window. Then Q is standing in the doorframe and Danny hasn’t the heart to make Q watch him fall nine stories to his death, so he simply braces himself against the counter and waits for Q’s reaction.

Q runs his hands through his hair. His sweatpants, no doubt stolen from Alex, pool at his feet. He looks ridiculously young and uncertain of himself, so unlike the confident man Danny has gotten to know over the last few months. It settles him, because this is Q. Q, not the wanker from school who threw him into the pool after he confessed to him. Not the accountant boyfriend who drank too much and resolved arguments with his fists. This is Q, and he’s every bit as nervous as Danny is.

“You caught me off guard,” Q mutters.

“Not in a bad way, I hope,” Danny teases weakly. He takes a tentative step forwards, which Q matches. They both stop again, staring at each other.

“No,” Q admits, and something hopeful blossoms in Danny’s chest. It’s the same sort of excited nervousness that filled him when he saw Alex on the bridge. It’s the same sort of terrible, wonderful thrill as when James winked at him over a candlelit table and called him beautiful. So many times he’s fallen in love, and the rush of it all still takes his breath away.

This time when he walks toward Q, it’s a bit more confident.

“We should—there’s a lot to figure out,” Q rambles, eyes blinking rapidly. “Our entire relationship needs to be recalibrated; sleeping arrangements, boundary negotiations, you get the drift. We should call up Bond and Alex, and…”

“Oh my god,” Danny laughs, because it doesn’t seem like Q will get to the point anytime soon. “Just kiss me, you idiot.”

And Q smiles that wide, gummy smile of his and leans in while Danny tugs him forward by his shoulders. Their lips meet messily, Danny’s mouth all lopsided and pinched from how hard he’s trying not to giggle like a nervous child, but it’s still good. Q kisses him delicately, nothing sexual, nothing demanding, intoxicating all the same. Danny feels oddly safe here, with Q’s soft lips moving against him. He tastes traces of sugar and something that might be nutmeg against his mouth and is reminded of the cookies they’ve promised to bake later. It’s all so sweet and gentle that his head is spinning with pure joy.

“I don’t want to fuck you,” says Danny, the next time they pull back for breath.

Q snorts, but looks relieved. “Good. Neither do I.”

Danny nods, satisfied, and kisses him again. Definitely nutmeg.

**Author's Note:**

> Curious about where this foursome came from? Check out the 00QAD tag on tumblr!


End file.
